US sanctions group that builds illegal West Bank settlements, with close ties to Israeli government By FATIMA HUSSEIN and JULIA FRANKEL November 19, 2024 https://apnews.com/article/treasury-sanctions-israel-hamas-gaza-war-8f652c7d2a5e53e5ca52d0c08a9a27cb WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Monday imposed sanctions on organizations and firms involved in illegal settlement development in the occupied West Bank, including a well-established decades-old group that has close ties with Israeli leadership. Treasury sanctioned Amana, the largest organization involved in illegal settlement development in the West Bank, and its subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd. Already sanctioned by Britain and Canada, Amana is one of the major funders and supporters of unauthorized settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Peace Now, a settlement tracking group, says its assets are valued at around 600 million Israeli shekels, or about $160 million, and that it has a yearly budget stretching into tens of millions of shekels. Amana, which is based in the West Bank and has no known connection to the U.S. appliance maker, over the past few years has underwritten loans, signed contracts, bought equipment and funded infrastructure projects for new settlements, according to Peace Now. The settlements, small farming outposts, have become some of the primary drivers of violence and displacement of Palestinians living in the West Bank. Additionally, the State Department imposed diplomatic sanctions on Eyal Hari Yehuda Co., which provides construction logistics to sanctioned groups, as well as company owner Itamar Yehuda Levi. The co-founder of the already sanctioned nonprofit group Hashomer Yosh, Shabtai Koshlevsky, and Israeli citizen Zohar Sabah, who has perpetrated acts of violence on Palestinians, also were hit with sanctions. The penalties come as settlers in the territory celebrate the incoming Trump administration, believing it will likely take a more favorable approach to the settlements. During his first term, Trump took unprecedented steps to support Israel’s territorial claims, including recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there, and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. Treasury’s Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the U.S. “remains committed to holding accountable those who seek to facilitate these destabilizing activities, which threaten the stability of the West Bank, Israel, and the wider region.” Among other things, the sanctions deny the people and firms access to any property or financial assets held in the U.S. and prevent U.S. companies and citizens from doing business with them. In February, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that targets Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the occupied territory. That order is used to justify the financial penalties against the companies and men. In response, Texans for Israel, a Christian nonprofit, Israeli nonprofit Regavim and others in August sued the Biden administration in Amarillo, Texas, over its sanctions against Israeli extremists in the West Bank. Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer who has spent years campaigning for the sanctions on violent West Bank settlers, said the sanctions on Amana were “an earthquake for the settlement project and especially the shepherds farms.” He called on the U.S. to extend the sanctions now to firebrand Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, also a far-right settler in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet. Amana’s leadership has appeared at pro-settlement events alongside Cabinet members. Peace Now says the group’s secretary-general, Zeev Hever, was greeted by Smotrich at a June conference where Smotrich laid out his plans for the West Bank. Violence against Palestinians and their displacement have only picked up since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023. Around 8,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the West Bank during that time and over 700 killed, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Palestinian health officials. The Associated Press previously reported that the sanctions measures have had minimal impact, instead emboldening settlers as attacks and land-grabs escalate, according to Palestinians in the West Bank, local rights groups and sanctioned Israelis who spoke to AP. Additionally, Smotrich has previously vowed to intervene on sanctioned settlers’ behalf. Israel captured the West Bank along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want those territories for their hoped-for future state. Settlement growth and construction have been promoted by successive Israeli governments stretching back decades, but it has exploded under Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, which has settlers in key Cabinet posts. There are now well over 100 settlements and 500,000 Israeli settlers sprawling across the territory from north to south — a reality, rights groups say, dimming any hopes for an eventual two-state solution. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said “we once again call on the Government of Israel to take action and hold accountable those responsible for or complicit in violence, forced displacement, and the dispossession of private land. The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who further destabilize conditions in the West Bank and support extremist violence in the region.”
Exclusive Gangs looting Gaza aid operate in areas under Israeli control, aid groups say A U.N. memo obtained by The Post concluded that gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from Israel’s military. An aid truck enters southern Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing in July. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu/Getty Images) By Claire Parker, Loveday Morris, Hajar Harb, Miriam Berger and Hazem Balousha November 18, 2024 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/18/gaza-looting-aid-convoys-israel-famine/ CAIRO — As Gaza’s hunger crisis worsens, organized gangs are stealing much of the aid Israel allows into the enclave, operating freely in areas controlled by the Israeli military, according to aid group officials, humanitarian workers, transport companies and witnesses. Officials said criminal looting has become the greatest impediment to distributing aid in the southern half of Gaza, home to the vast majority of displaced Palestinians. Armed bands of men have killed, beaten and kidnapped aid truck drivers in the area around Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point into Gaza’s south, aid workers and transport companies said. The thieves, who have run cigarette-smuggling operations throughout this year but are now also stealing food and other supplies, are tied to local crime families, residents say. The gangs are described by observers as rivals of Hamas and, in some cases, they have been targeted by remnants of Hamas’s security forces in other parts of the enclave. An internal United Nations memo obtained by The Washington Post concluded last month that the gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israel Defense Forces. One gang leader, the memo said, established a “military like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the IDF.” Aid organizations say Israeli authorities have denied most of their requests for better measures to safeguard convoys, including appeals for safer routes, more open crossings and permission to allow Gaza’s civilian police to protect the trucks. Israeli forces within view of the attacks have also failed on multiple occasions to intervene as looting was underway, aid workers, U.N. officials, transport workers and truck drivers say. The Israeli military has denied the allegations, saying in a statement that its troops have carried out “targeted countermeasures” against the looters “with an emphasis on targeting the terrorists and preventing collateral damage to the aid trucks and the elements of the international community.” The IDF is “working to enable and facilitate the transfer of aid,” the statement added. End of carousel In the latest major incident, 98 out of 109 trucks carrying U.N. food aid from Kerem Shalom were ransacked by armed men overnight Saturday, according to U.N. humanitarian agencies and Gaza businessman Adham Shuhaibar, who had eight trucks in the convoy. The looters shot at the trucks and detained a driver for hours, Shuhaibar said. A statement from UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said the attack caused “injuries to transporters” and “extensive vehicle damage.” Muhannad Hadi, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, said “Gaza is basically lawless. There is no security anywhere.” Israel is “the occupying power,” he said, so “this is on them. They need to make sure that the area is protected and secured.” This story is based on more than 20 interviews with representatives from a range of international aid organizations, Palestinian businessmen involved in the transport of goods, and witnesses to attacks on humanitarian convoys. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their access to Gaza or the safety of their staff. The Post also reviewed previously unpublished U.N. documents on the scale of the looting crisis and spoke with the gang leader aid groups believe is the main culprit behind the attacks. Palestinians loot a truck with humanitarian aid that entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing in November 2023. (Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa/picture alliance/Getty Images) What began in the spring as a largely random phenomenon of desperate civilians stealing from trucks has now morphed into an organized criminal enterprise, aid groups say, and the gangs responsible have become increasingly violent and powerful — compounding the struggle to deliver food, hygiene items and cold-weather supplies to 2 million displaced and hungry people as winter approaches. In October, the amount of assistance reaching Gazans fell to its lowest point since the early stages of the war, even as U.S. officials demanded that Israel surge aid across the enclave or risk losing some military support. While the threat of famine is most severe in the north, the entire population now faces acute food insecurity, a U.N.-backed panel found this month. COGAT, the Israeli military’s civilian affairs department for the Palestinian territories, has justified restrictions on the flow of goods by alleging repeatedly that Hamas is stealing aid and preventing it from reaching civilians. As Washington urges Israel to allow more trucks into Gaza, looting has become the greatest obstacle to distributing the limited aid that does make it in, according to a U.S. official, who added that Hamas is not behind the attacks — an assessment that was widely shared by those operating on the ground. “We have not seen any physical interference from Hamas anywhere in our programs, north or south,” an official from a major international aid organization said. An Israeli security guard gestures to Egyptian truck drivers who arrived with humanitarian aid designated to be transported to Gaza at the Kerem Shalom border crossing in March. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post) Rise of the gangs Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza more than a year ago, after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that left 1,200 dead. Hamas and other militants took about 250 people hostage. Israel’s war has flattened much of Gaza; killed more than 43,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry; and displaced 1.9 million — 90 percent of the population. Civil order began to collapse in February, as Israel targeted civilian police officers who had been guarding humanitarian convoys, citing their affiliation with the Hamas-run government. Desperate civilians and criminals began rushing trucks to steal supplies, causing a slowdown in deliveries. Initially, according to aid workers, many of the looters were hungry people trying to feed their families. In May, Israel seized and shut down the Rafah border crossing with Egypt — which had been Gaza’s main lifeline — reducing the number of aid trucks able to enter the enclave. The majority of humanitarian traffic shifted to Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, which leads to a part of southern Gaza where powerful Bedouin families, some involved in organized crime, have long held sway. By the summer, a lucrative black-market trade in smuggled cigarettes — banned by Israel from entering Gaza during the war — was booming, with organized gangs attacking trucks to search for them. Tobacco became a dominant form of currency. A pack of 20 cigarettes now goes for around $1,000, according to Georgios Petropoulos, head of the Gaza office for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who called it a “cancer” that’s “crept into our supply chain.” A Palestinian man sells cigarettes by the piece as their soaring prices and rarity make them unaffordable to buy by the pack, at a makeshift market in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip in July. A 20-pack of black-market cigarettes now goes for around $1,000. (Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images) He said cigarettes, originally hidden in produce, were now being found inside cans of food, showing that smuggling begins in factories, with much of the contraband believed to originate in Egypt. The smuggling route runs through the Sinai Peninsula and is linked to the Egyptian branches of the Bedouin tribes in Gaza, aid organizations and transport company executives said. A spokesman for the Egyptian foreign press office did not respond to a request for comment. U.N. officials say they have repeatedly asked Israel to clamp down on cigarette smuggling — or let cigarettes in legally — to ease the looting epidemic, but discussions have been fruitless. In a video filmed by one humanitarian worker in June, and shared with The Post, four men stood or sat on an open-bed truck, one of them using a sharp object to cut into a carton of U.N. aid. They were searching for cigarettes, the worker said. A video filmed by a humanitarian worker in June and shared with The Post shows men using a sharp object to cut into a carton of U.N. aid. (Video: Obtained by The Post) Over the summer, the United Nations and international aid organizations lost $25.5 million worth of humanitarian goods to looting, according to an Oct. 28 PowerPoint presentation obtained by The Post. Israel cut commercial supply lines to Gaza last month, saying militants were benefiting from the trade, and the number of aid trucks it permitted to enter the Strip plummeted to near record lows. Nearly half of the already diminished food aid the World Food Program moved along the southern Gaza route was stolen, according to the presentation, which was given by OCHA to a group that includes U.N. agencies, nongovernmental organizations and donor countries, including the United States. Gangs used to discard the aid on the road for civilians to pick over after locating stashed cigarettes, an international aid worker said. Now, “in a lot of cases they hijack the entire truck and take it to a warehouse” to resell food and other goods at exorbitant prices on the black market, they added. Who ultimately profits from the smuggled or stolen goods remains murky. Israeli officials, who have often accused Hamas of hijacking aid and commercial deliveries to enrich itself, acknowledged last week that crime families were behind some of the looting. “Some looters have connections to Hamas, and some do not,”an Israeli official told journalists at a briefing on Nov. 11, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The man aid groups believe to be the ringleader of the most prolific gang spent time in a Hamas jail on criminal charges before the war, said Adham Shuhaibar’s brother Nahed, the president of the private transportation association in Gaza. Displaced Palestinians shelter in a tent camp in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, as seen on Thursday. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters) The internal U.N. memo obtained by The Post identified Yasser Abu Shabab — a member of the Tarabin tribe, which spans southern Gaza, the Negev Desert in Israel and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula — as “the main and most influential stakeholder behind systematic and massive looting” of aid convoys. Operating from the eastern part of Rafah, Abu Shabab leads an outfit of about “100 thugs” who attack trucks bringing food and other supplies into Gaza, Nahed Shuhaibar said. He described how the gang sets up berms to waylay convoys along the Israeli-controlled route from Kerem Shalom, where they wait with Kalashnikovs and other weapons. In one incident in early October, about 80 of Shuhaibar’s 100 aid trucks were attacked and the goods inside stolen by Abu Shabab’s men, he said. The gang has killed four of his drivers since May, he added, most recently in an attack on Oct. 15. Another driver who was attacked last month remains in the hospital with broken arms and legs, Shuhaibar said. “The hallmark now, as opposed to two months ago, is that there’s a real pronounced violence,” Petropoulos said. “The truck drivers we hire are beaten, maimed, killed.” The Post reached Abu Shabab, the alleged gang leader, by phone this month. He denied that his men carry weapons or attack drivers. And while he acknowledged that he and his relatives “take from the trucks,” he insisted they do not touch “food, tents, or supplies for children.” His operation was born of desperation, he said: “Hamas has left us with nothing, and their armed men occasionally come and shoot at us,” he said. “Let those who accuse us of working with Israel say what they want,” he added. “Israel doesn’t need us.” In densely populated areas farther inside Gaza where Hamas security forces still operate, though with a greatly reduced footprint, they punish merchants who procure goods from Abu Shabab to sell at inflated prices, Nahed Shuhaibar said. “Things are under control” in areas Hamas controls, he said. “The only challenge facing us is the area where Abu Shabab is located” — a part of Gaza that is “under Israeli protection,” he added. Israel did not respond to questions from The Post about Abu Shabab and his alleged criminal activities. A truck loaded with humanitarian aid for Gaza arrives at the Kerem Shalom border crossing in March. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post) Gaza’s most dangerous road For months, Israel approved only one route for all aid entering through the Kerem Shalom crossing: a rough road running from the cargo pickup point through a desolate patch of southeastern Gaza. One humanitarian worker who regularly travels the route said looters typically station themselves a little over a mile and a half from the crossing. Others recounted seeing men and boys even closer to the entry point, some armed with sticks, rods and guns. While traveling in a humanitarian convoy during a visit to Gaza this month, Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said he saw a group of men carrying sticks less than half a mile from the aid pickup point. Mattresses intended for displaced people were strewn along the road, cut to pieces by thieves searching for cigarettes. Several trucks were attacked later that day, he said. Adham Shuhaibar and Qaher Hameed, the owner of another transportation company in Gaza, each said their trucks were pillaged just over 500 yards from Israeli military posts. The Israeli military “sees them and silently monitors everything that happens,” Hameed said. A soldier stands on patrol as trucks carrying humanitarian aid prepare to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez West crossing on Nov. 11. (Amir Levy/Getty Images) Egeland, whose organization provides humanitarian relief and psychosocial support for children in Gaza, said “it’s not possible to do anything” in the enclave without Israel’s knowledge. While the gangs carry out their work openly, local escorts employed by logistics companies were “shot at repeatedly” by Israeli forces in early October, the U.N. memo said, describing one incident involving a quadcopter drone. Meanwhile, suspected Hamas fighters carrying weapons in other parts of Gaza are generally taken out immediately by the Israeli military, aid workers said. The IDF frequently releases drone surveillance footage of such targeted strikes. U.N. officials say they have confronted their Israeli counterparts over the lack of security around Kerem Shalom:“At one point we told [Israeli officials], what is that meant to make us think if the only place in Gaza where an armed Palestinian can come within 150 meters of a tank and not get shot is there?” Petropoulos said. A man carries a box of humanitarian aid, supplied by the World Food Program, back to his home in the Bureij refugee camp on Monday. (Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images) Humanitarian groups have repeatedly asked Israeli authorities to approve other crossings and routes that would allow them to bypass the gangs. For months, they recounted, those entreaties were ignored: “The only route they give us is directly through the looters,” one aid worker said. When the World Food Program tried to clear another road for humanitarian use in recent months, its team came under fire on several occasions, according to Alia Zaki, a spokeswoman for the agency. The new route was finally approved by Israel last month, and some aid trucks have begun using it. But looters have already adapted, targeting convoys there as well, Zaki said. Janti Soeripto, chief executive of Save the Children, said the only way to truly address Gaza’s humanitarian crisis would be to flood the enclave with aid and commercial supplies — undercutting the price gouging that fuels the looting. “A lot of the disorder goes away when you actually get humanitarian access,” she said. Aid groups say the lives of untold Palestinians could depend on it. Morris reported from Berlin, Harb from London, Berger from Jaffa, Israel, and Balousha from Toronto. Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv and Meg Kelly in Washington contributed to this report.
What's the motivation for anything? Having a pulse would be amongst them. It was inevitable for a blowback to happen to Israel's years long repressions in Gaza, hence the title "Yawn...." Israel creates its own woes then yells "antisemitism" and the stupid media and religion brainwashed West rally around with naive sympathy.
"....by alleging repeatedly that Hamas is stealing aid and preventing it from reaching civilians" This is the line that our pro Israel troll @gwb-trading insists on continually spreading.
Israeli settlers wait for Trump to reverse US sanctions Amana, an Israeli organisation that backs illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, has denounced sanctions imposed on it by the US. US authorities said Monday that they will impose sanctions on Amana and its construction branch, Binyanei Bar Amana, as well as others that have “ties to violent actors in the West Bank”. But settlers are waiting for President-elect Donald Trump to take office in January to reverse the move. “We are confident that with the change of administration in Washington and with proper and necessary action by the Israeli government, all sanctions will be lifted,” Amana said of Trump’s perceived leniency towards Israeli actions. Yossi Dagan, Shomron Regional Council president, in charge of settlements in the northern West Bank, called the sanctions “the final act of the Biden administration, which is cynical and hostile towards the Near East’s only democracy”. Video Duration 01 minutes 45 seconds 01:45 Israeli settlers’ attacks continue in occupied West Bank https://www.aljazeera.com/news/live...e-fire-as-netanyahu-downplays-ceasefire-talks
You're a fucking idiot looking to justify genocide, any excuse to support your warped beliefs. Matey, I'm 100% European pure skin whitey. Retard!
You see the same two goons, @gwb-trading and @Atlantic on the Russia Ukraine thread rooting for death, violence, relishing in destruction and slaughter. Clueless retards, brainwashed.